what was the ancient battle really like?????

W

WARmachine88

Banned
I just read a book about the ancient Rome Legion, the author has a pretty unique idea compared to the history books I read in other places:

ancient battles were mostly short burst of melee fight that lasted just a very short period of time rather than some ancient tales saying fighting "whole day" bla bla bla.

one side, often those leniently orgniazed, badly-trained troops, would collapse once those behind the first line thought the situation looked or sounded (they couldn't really see an exact picture of what was happening to the first line) and ran away. That was when the real slaughter began, as the chasing of the fleeing troops started.
 
Actually, won battle I do know of invovling the Romans that went for most of the Day, the Battle of Pydna.

The Macedonians continued stopping the Romans advances and pushing them back.
Unfortunatly for the Macedonians, their flanks (The Companions and the Hypapsists) didn't march forward as fast as the Phalanx, the the Romans out flannked them.

Well once the Phalanx was out flanked, the slaughter begun inside the Phalanx formation, while the Companions and Hypapsists tried in vain to help them.
 
Wether the Greeks could win or not truly depended on wether the people behind the first line collapse or stay.

First line will stay and fight if they have their comardes behind them standing firm (no way they can escape either), but if their comrades think Romans are flanking them and they flee, the battlefield will become a slaughterfield.

in ancient time communication was really backward and soldiers really didn't know what was truly happening, battle probably would just last for 10-20 min and one side would flee
 
Yes, the Greeks were like that, that's how the Macedonian Conqured them.

Never call a Macedonian a Greek and never call a Greek a Macedonian.

The Macedonian Phalanx was a very unique structure. First of all, evey last soldier in the Phalanx was a professional. They were not un organised militias trained to fight in war time. They were highy trained and disciplened professional soldiers trained to fight all the time.

Secondly, The Macedonian Phalanx was 48 ranks deep and x number wide. The first six ranks, held their sarissa (a 20 ft long spear) out infront of them, while the remaining ranks held their in the air.
If a soldier in the front rank was killed, the soldier behind would move up and tak his place, and this would continue throughout the formation.

This tactic worked so well, because the Phalnx would hold out long enough for the Companions to run in and cut the opposing flanks, while the Hypapsists would close in on the main enemy formation. Once the Enemy broke ranks, it would be a large scale butchering.

Another unit though that was unusual to Ancient tactics was the Theban Sacred Band. A 300 strong formation of soldiers that could fight, cut off from the main formations.
Their shields were designed to overlap the next persons shield, protecting them, and they would fight to the very last man.

They were completly destoyed by Alexander the Great's Charge at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, they were the second last Greek unit to be destroyed that day. The last was the Combined Greek Phalanx, that Alexander later surronded and attacked from the rear. Destroying the Bulk of the Greek armies, and letting Philip II to conquer Greece.
 
do you think they just push pikes (medival word, but pretty much the same thing) for whole day?

or it just lasts like less than one hour before one side's line will collapse and the battle ends with cavalry charge against fleeing enemies.
 
Well the new research into ancient warfare has shown that even humans in peak physical condition lose significant effectiveness after 5 minutes when trying to hack slash and thrust their hefty weapons while wearing all the armor. So new theories have come up to say that ancient battles where more 10 minutes of fighting followed by 10 minutes of resting back and forth kind of combat.

I'm pretty skeptical about this model but it is a new theory that is out there. One thing is pretty sure, it would be very near impossible for an ancient Roman/Macedonian/Greek infantryman to stay in the fight for an hour, much less the whole day.
 
some examinations of ancient soldiers' remains show that most of people were killed when they started to flee and enemies' cavalry started to chase them.

ancient battle tends to be a short burst of fighting (sort of like street fighting in my opinion, lasting no more than 10 min while everybody is exhausted) that ends with one side's quick collapse.

but i am not sure about the Macedonians' pushing of pikes with each other, probably lasting longer
 
You want to know what a ancient battle is like watch the first part of gladiator cut out the hollywood crap add double the men and double the carnage. picture bodies all over men on the ground screaming from being cut down, shot from arrows, smashed from heavy cavalry and thats a ancient battle. Like a lot of guys have said so far ya they are not that long battles few minutes 10-20 mins. the battles that last a "day" would not be a full out conflict most liking small skirmishes.

Macedonian pike was great in phalanx formation but as I see it there is huge draw backs. First off you have hundreds of men close together Archers?? slingers?? skirmishers?? Also the flanks like people said flank the pike they in trouble. The way I see it also if you can get face to face the men in the phalanx you have the advantage since they have pike and the romans have their short sword. I mean ok its built in layers but the rows behind dont have much room to move or anything.

What you said about people found most soldiers died while running away
darn right. I would cut the guys down as they run I mean its like we just fought a huge battle your not getting away that easy. I know the Romans had a cavalry unit that was made to do only that they traveled light and would kill retreating units.

I found a couple of pictures just from a game it gives a fairly good idea of a phalanx formation saidly I did not get one of a huge phalanx formation.






 
lol, another ROme total war fan? maybe we can play a couple games together sometimes.

Rome total war is by far the most accurate re-enaction of ancient warfare among all other games and movies made (this game is even used by History channel for the programs talking about ancient wars).

but I still have doubts about how is it possible that my legionaries running around and fighting for whole day without exhausting themselves to death.
 
in the game they do get very tired they will not fall over but they will move much slower and not fight as great. Ya though its a great game for kill ands history lovers.
 
"Never call a Macedonian a Greek and never call a Greek a Macedonian."

For your knowledge, I would like to inform you that when people speak about ancient Macedonians, people refer to Hellenen (Greeks) who had lived in the geographical area of Macedonia in Northern Hellas(Greece) 200 years BC. At that time, today’s inhabitants of North Macedonia, Skopje (Bulgaria) etc. were not present at this area, as today’s inhabitants of the so called North Macedonia, Skopje (Bulgaria), are Slavs who have appeared in history as nation only on the 7th century. So, the ones who call themselves today as Macedonians(FYROM) are not Greeks and only use the name by living in the 100% Hellenic (Greek) Macedonian area.

A (Hellenic) Greek Macedonian
 
Rome Total war is a great game and is a wonderful tool to show how ancient battles are likely to have been fought. It's so good that there was an entire TV series on the History Channel that re-created ancient battles using the Rome: Total War game engine, and it was actually really good!
 
Ghost Rider LSOV said:
"Never call a Macedonian a Greek and never call a Greek a Macedonian."

For your knowledge, I would like to inform you that when people speak about ancient Macedonians, people refer to Hellenen (Greeks) who had lived in the geographical area of Macedonia in Northern Hellas(Greece) 200 years BC. At that time, today’s inhabitants of North Macedonia, Skopje (Bulgaria) etc. were not present at this area, as today’s inhabitants of the so called North Macedonia, Skopje (Bulgaria), are Slavs who have appeared in history as nation only on the 7th century. So, the ones who call themselves today as Macedonians(FYROM) are not Greeks and only use the name by living in the 100% Hellenic (Greek) Macedonian area.

A (Hellenic) Greek Macedonian
Click to expand...

Well, you learn something new everyday. Sorry for my ignorance in that area.


As for Rome Total War, I am the only guy in my group at school who has not played it. I am very....annoyed about it.

cokeisthebest, I see what you mean, that the Macedonians couldn't fight like that all day. I was not very clear from what I said earlier.
I don't beleive that the Macedonian Phalanx could have held out for an entire day, But I do know the battle was longer than most battles in history.
One thing I did not mention about the Phalanx, was that they did carry swords, and once the enemy did reach their lines and the front, it was spears down, swords out and pretty much good luck.

Pydna, was the Macedonians Last stand, and they pulled out every trick in the book to win. Catapults, long ranger archers and javelins, a do or die stand by the Auxiliaries.

The Greeks had turned against them, and they were faced were being invaded by the Romans, Their Empier that stood for some 250 was crumbling around them so they fought hard. I beleive modern researchers put the length of the battle at 50 min to and Hour.
By then both sides were tired, and fatigued, but, The Macedonians were defeated for some time, they just didn't give up. The Phalanx fighting was around 10 minutes, but the Cavalry broke ranks, and ran back to Auxiliaries line and had pursuers have arrows fired at them.

The Hypapsists were about equal in standards of uniforms and weapons to the Roman Leigonaries, but their numbers weren't there. The Hypapsists fighting was the longest. They fought in formation to the last man, a tactic taught to them 250 years earlier by Philip II after Chaeronea. The Phalanx was out flanked, and thoes in the first six ranks were trapped, and fought puerly to live, while the remaning 36 ranks, fled and were butchered by the Roman Cavalry (Equites I think they're called)
So, The Romans had won in about 10 minutes but the Macedonians just kept fighting to the end.
 
To answer your question it would depend if you were on the winning side or the losing one. If you had been on the winning side then it was not to bad, if you had been on the losing side then you would not be fighting any future battles.
 
You got to be really brave and bloodthirsty to fight in an ancient war. Fingers, hands, arms, heads get chopped off...

either yours or theirs..

Now the present day wars are more gentlemanly fought.. shooting at one another, hiding and trying not to see your face...

:rambo: 8)
 
I think its the technology to 'blame', because soldiers still must be very aggressive and bloodthirsty in a battle. I mean, you're fighting for your and the life of the guys around you in a firefight, politics and shit don't matter at all, so those violent ancient instincts surface.
 
One of the biggest killers on the ancient battle field was...bacteria.

The Romans believed that pus was part of the healing process - in fact this wasn't challenged until the 1600's. Some surgeons even went as far as introducing a foreign body to induce pus in a wound that didn't have any!

Sterilisation of medical instruments was not introduced until the 1880's as did the wearing of gowns, masks and gloves. Amputations right up to WW1 had a high mortality rate because of post-op infection.

There weren't the modern anesthetics and the instruments were not razor sharp as they are today. In fact, "sawing motions" were referred to by ancient physicians for what today we call an incision. It wasn't uncommon for young patients to die of heart attack in surgery from the shear pain.

The ancients did understand that cauterisation could destroy infection but could not fight any resulting infection from the burns.

I think LeEnfield had it right - you were OK if you were on the winning side. But I think he might have added "provided you didn't have any injuries"
 
No.

I believe that ancient battles really took hours rather than minutes.I think the scientists who came up with these theories didn't really look into the evolutionary process.

You see humans back then were a lot stronger than they are now.Humans as we evolve into more intelligent beings,our bodies become weaker.

So it would be pretty difficult for modern day man to fight a battle carrying armor,shield,and weapon.And be expected to last several hours,let alone several minutes,but to ancient man this was nothing.
 
in ancient battles the catapults and arrows softened up the enemy then
the infantry wased used for mopping up the enemy.when the enemy retreated the cavalry charged and killed as many of them as they could.
these tactics varied a little.
Back then wars were fought pretty much the same way.this was called attrition warfare. commanders couldn't be creative because technology
didn't let them
 
in ancient time, arrows and spears fly with very low velocity, and can be easily avoided if you look straight up and hold you shield ready.


and even back in 2000 years ago. It is not possible for humans to slash and stab for hours (even today's top athelics cannot do that). A typical battle probably lasts no more than 10 min and one side will break, that is the result learned from digging on the old battle field.
 
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